104 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM NATURE VS. NURTURE Susan’s life isn’t all grand adventures and close calls. When she’s not heading out on safari, she’s teaching classes at Stanford or studying neural circuits and brain development. She’s always found herself intrigued by the age-old question of nature versus nurture. (“What things do you just do because it's programmed? And what things do we have to be taught?”) “I think about these two parts of my life as two different trees that have grown out of the same root system, and that's a love of animal behavior,” muses Susan, who has also achieved the honor of being elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The class she finds most rewarding to teach is conservation photography and she’s led three-week conservation courses overseas through Stanford, helping students get hands-on as they head into the field. “Getting people to care and to be curious,” Susan says, is the best way to ensure that wildlife survives and thrives. INSPIRING STORIES While her love for animals certainly drives her, there’s another influence that’s impacted Susan’s trajectory, this one human. “When I was little, I discovered a stack of National Geographic magazines piled up next to my grandparents' television set,” she recalls. In those pages, Susan came across Jane Goodall, the primatologist studying chimpanzee societies and behavior in remote Tanzania. “For me, that was one of the most romantic things,” Susan says. “She is the reason that I'm a scientist.” She adds, “I ABOVE: (clockwise, from left) A leopard lounges in a tree at Kenya's Samburu National Park; a humpback whale swims in the waters off Tonga; wildlife photographer Susan McConnell.
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